Adding insult to injury
by angelfromhigh
Summary: Hermione felt Harry's gaze fall upon the bruise on her cheek. Tell me who did this! Ron shouted. Taking a deep breath, Hermione said, Well you see, this is somewhat self inflicted.


A/N: Reposted so that I could catch my glaring spelling and grammar errors ( I sincerely hope I caught them all this time) . I still own nothing although I did buy a nice set of dishes today...

Hermione ignored the Fat Lady's worried looks and advice to visit the hospital wing- she just wanted to go to bed and avoid any more humiliation tonight. She crept silently and slowly, hoping beyond hope that at this late hour, everyone would already be in bed.

"Hermione?" cried a voice from the couch. "Have you been in the library all this time?" Harry said sitting up from his lying position.

Ron turned around in his seat to face her. She could feel Harry's gaze land upon the bruise forming on her cheek, while Ron's eye was drawn to the slight limp she was walking with.

They were on their feet in a flash.

"Hermione what happened?" Harry said rushing over to her, "Who did this to you?" he made to touch the bruise on her face but stopped short, almost as though he were afraid to break her.

Ron gently grabbed her left arm, which was also slowly being covered in bruises, and examined it, "Who the bloody hell did this to you?" he shouted.

"Ron, calm down a tick," Hermione sighed, precisely wishing to have avoided this moment.

"Hermione, if someone hurt you like this, they're going to pay." Ron said, his face slowly turning an odd shade of red-ish purple.

Harry hadn't said anything, but was searching her face, for signs of...well signs of damage that weren't as apparent as the bruises on her cheek and left arm. In reality her entire left side was covered in bruises, but her clothes hid them well enough, though her left buttock was starting to throb slightly. Hermione suddenly wished she had gone with her first instinct and taken a nice long bath before coming to the common room.

"Hermione..." Harry said softly, he finally let his finger graze her cheek lightly, earning a soft hiss from her. He pulled his hand away quickly. "We should get you to Madam Pomphrey, if you won't tell us who did this to you, at least let us take you to see her," he said forcefully.

Hermione chuckled lightly, amazed at how protective her boys were of her.

"No, Harry, that's not good enough. I want to know who hurt you Hermione. Please tell me so I can beat the bloody pulp out of them," Ron said angrily.

"Well you see..." Hermione limping her way to the couch, "this is sort of self inflicted."

Harry followed her slowly; not understanding what she meant by that, knowing she would explain herself, Ron on the other hand said "What are you bloody on about?"

"Would you stop swearing Ron, it's getting on my nerves," Hermione stated primly. "You see, well I was on the quiddich pitch," this next part Hermione had to brace herself to be embarrassed by, "and I was practising flying."

Hermione braced herself for the laughter, but when none came, she continued with her story.

"I was practising on one of the schools old Cleansweeps, and I was going really well, but then I couldn't figure out how to stop." She flinched slightly as she sat down on the couch, realizing that standing up after this would be difficult. "I had gained a little height, nothing like you guys go, but enough to scare the wits out of me, and I thought I mastered how to stop, but I just ended up going faster. I started freaking out, and finally stopped the broom, but wasn't holding on tight enough so I went over the edge and landed on the grass below."

Harry and Ron were quiet for an entire minute before they burst out laughing. "Hermione that has to be the funniest thing I've ever heard," Ron said between gasps of breath. He was rolling around on the floor, he was laughing so hard.

"Stupid... Hermione...funny...musta hurt" was all Hermione could make out from between their joint chuckles.

Hermione felt the tear fall down her cheek before she registered she had been crying.

Standing up, angry and incredibly hurt, Hermione winced through the pain and said "I'll have you both know I'm neither stupid nor some joke you can laugh at lightly. I am supposed to be one of your best friends and I'm clearly in pain here after trying to learn how to fly because of you two and the years of teasing I have endured at your hands. Some friends you've been," with that she stormed out, well attempted to storm, more like limped out slowly.

Harry stopped laughing immediately and looked down at Ron who was still gasping for air.

"Ron, we need to apologize."

"Why Harry... if one of us had made a fool out of ourselves like she had, we would have laughed at ourselves. So what if she's not a good flyer, she can't possibly be good at everything, now can she?"

Harry was slightly miffed at Ron's words and headed towards to the portrait hole to catch up with Hermione.

Even though she had a head start, it really wasn't difficult to find her, as she was limping and walking slowly.

"Hermione," Harry called to her from the other end of the hall, breaking into a slight jog he caught up to her, calling her name as he did.

"Hermione!" he said grabbing her arm, before realizing it was her bruised arm that he had just touched. She flinched and pulled her arm away, and pointedly ignored him. She kept walking, pretending as though the tears running down her face meant nothing.

"Hermione, please stop." Harry was practically begging now.

"Just leave me alone Harry."

"Please, Hermione," using his speed he moved to stand in front of her, blocking her way, "hear me out."

She turned on her heal and started back the other way, but he was still too quick for her and cut her off yet again.

Getting angry at him, she whipped out her wand and held it point blank at his forehead.

"Move. Out. Of. My. Way." she bit off each word with such hurt, that Harry wasn't able to be a little more than intimidated by the brunette before him. In a small voice that Harry had never heard Hermione use before, she said, "please Harry, just leave me alone right now."

"No." he lowered her wand from his forehead, and she dropped her gaze to her feet. "Hermione, I'm so sorry I laughed at you. I don't think you are stupid, you are quite possibly the furthest thing from stupid imaginable."

He thought he heard her mumble, 'that's all I am', but didn't question.

"You are at the top of our class. You can perform spells grown wizards can't, you have faced more in the past 6 years than most people face in their lifetime. You are an amazing witch; you will have job offers out of your arse once you've left Hogwarts. You're great Hermione."

"I'm not stupid," she said, not looking up from her feet.

"No." he said gently, moving forward, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, "you're not stupid."

Harry lost track of time holding Hermione, rocking her gently back and forth in middle of the hallway.

She finally pulled away, tears stained her face and her eyes were red and puffy, but Harry was quite certain that she was still beautiful.

"Hermione, why didn't you ask me or Ron - or rather me, to teach you to fly?" he said not tearing his gaze away from her.

"Because that would be admitting defeat."

"You make flying sound like a contest."

"No, not flying, it would have meant that I'm not good at something, and I can't even learn how to do it by myself. It would have taken away from everything I am. If I can't learn it from books and teach myself, then I have failed," she dropped her head again, fresh tears threatening to fall.

Harry brought his finger under her chin and forced her to face him.

"Hermione you are not a failure. You just can't learn everything from books," he said with chuckle attempting to imagine learning how to play music, or draw art from a text.

"There's another reason I didn't want to come to you," she said this, barely above a whisper.

With her face still in his hand, his thumb went to her non-bruised cheek, and wiped away the tear that had fallen. It was just then that he realized that they were mere centimetre's apart, their noses nearly touching.

He looked into her eyes, noticing for the first time small speckles of amber dancing near her iris. Her lashes stuck together through her tears, making them look longer and darker.

"What's that?" Harry breathed out, his gaze dropping momentarily to her lips, realizing they were the perfect shade of pink to be attractive against her skin tone. He was suddenly fighting every impulse in his body telling him to kiss his best friend.

"I wanted to impress you with my flying skills, show you I can keep up with you, Ron...and Ginny," she looked into his eyes momentarily before quite literally tearing her face out of his reach. "I'm sorry Harry; I guess I'm just emotional. I just wanted to impress you," she paused a beat and added "and Ron and Ginny," in a breath.

Harry's mind was suddenly brought back abruptly to Ginny.

He had ended things last year. When they had returned to Hogwarts to use the library for research under the preteens of returning as full-time students, he had considered recommencing something with the red-head. But something in his mind nagged him against the idea. As a result he spent most of his free time in the library with Ron and Hermione, pouring over ancient manuals trying to figure out where the next Hocrux was.

He was brought back to something Hermione said as she began walking away from him.

"You wanted to impress me?"

She stopped dead in her tracks, and with her back to him replied softly, "Yes," attempting to lighten the situation she added, "apparently I'm the equivalent of Neville in potion's class on a broom." She chuckled lightly at her own joke.

"Why did you want to impress me?" he asked approaching her back, noticing some slight discolouration where some skin peaked out from the back of her shirt.

"I just...well-" she was cut off suddenly when Harry lifted her shirt, gasping at the nasty bruise blue and purple bruise that had formed. It clearly outlined her entire left side. "It probably looks worse than it actually feels," she mumbled, flinching as he brought a finger to her lower back testing her words. "Ok, maybe it feels just as bad."

The severity of her actions for him dawned on him suddenly.

She put herself in this danger, for him. This was not Voldemort and Death Eater danger, this was trying to impress him danger, something stupid and fool hearted, and completely un-Hermione-like.

"Why did you want to impress me?" he asked again suddenly, realizing that this was a very very important answer.

He stopped tracing her bruise and was now tracing along her milky white back, stopping short of being inappropriate.

Hermione was having trouble thinking with Harry's finger's running up and down her back the way they were. Shivers, the good kind, were running through her, and she realized, this was one of those 'now or never' moment's her mother used to tell her about.

"Because of the way your eye's light up when I do something impressive," she whispered, not daring to look at his expression. "Because I wanted to show you I'm just as good as Ginny is," her head dropped at this revelation. "Because flying is such an important part of your life," and this was the moment of truth, "and I want to be everything you want in a girl," her voice was dropping with each word she said "because I'm deeply and madly in love with you..." her last words would not have been heard were it not for her close proximity for him, and his intent focus on what she was saying.

He wasn't saying anything.

Why wasn't he saying anything? His finger stopped tracing her back. It was just sitting there. He didn't know what to say, what to think, what to do. Their friendship was ruined, and it was fully and completely her fault, she should never have added that last bit, he was perfectly content with her other explanations, why had she done something so -

"Hermione," she was torn out of her thoughts, his finger was moving sideways across her back, and her shirt had fallen again. He was moving beside her, she could see his feet walking in front of her. His finger still on her back he faced her, and she looked up, never knowing that doing so would be his downfall.

Forgetting about protecting his loved ones, forgetting about Voldemort and the pain he had inflicted, forgetting that he, Harry Potter, boy-who-lived-wonder boy, was supposed to save the world, but never forgetting that the girl in his arms was his best friend, one of the most amazing witches and women he had ever met, with a quiet beauty, Harry bent down and captured her perfectly pink lips, in kiss forcing Harry and Hermione to realize just what they had each been missing all these years.

For tonight, the world would wait as he showed Hermione just how much she meant to him.

_For tonight, she was the world_.

Suddenly she broke off the kiss and with a mischievous grin pulled out of his embrace. She began limping down the hallway.

"Hermione?"

"Well before you caught up with me to apologize," she said over her shoulder, starting to descend a set of staircases, "I was originally headed for a bath to soak my pain," she took another step and looked over her shoulder, and said "I think I might just go do that now..."

"Oh-ok" was all Harry could come up with. He quite honestly didn't want to go back to his dormitory, he wanted to be with her, but if she wanted to soak away the pain that he essentially caused her, who was he to stop her. Turning slowly Harry took a step to make his way back to his dorm.

"Harry..." she called.

He snapped his attention back to her "Yea?"

"Where are you going?" there was hurt in her eyes.

"You said you wanted to go sit in the tub..." he looked at her questioningly, was that not what she had said? Had he heard her wrong?

She raised an eyebrow, and smiled suggestively.

A realization dawned on him "Oh!"

And with that he followed her.

I hope you all enjoyed it, again I hope I caught all the errors, if not feel free to point them out and I'll do my best to re-edit (again eep...)

Anyways, to a reviewer who asked how the bathroom scene would work as she was in so much pain, well I don't actually see them going beyond kissing as they are both fairly young and neither of them are the types to...uh excuse the expression, give it up on the first date, I figure they just filled the bathtub with bubles and went from there, that's how I envisioned it, but feel free to imagine whichever end you liked haha...Thanks to all my reviewers!

AFH


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